


Let Me love & you got me, runaway

by stuckwithminusharry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (kind of), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Bisexual Ginny Weasley, Bisexual Harry Potter, Drinking Games, Everyone Is Gay, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Married Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Married Romione, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Muggle AU, Muggle London, One Night Stands, Party, Partying, Past Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley - Freeform, Smut, The Golden Trio, fwb to lovers, mutual denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-11-24 13:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20908424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckwithminusharry/pseuds/stuckwithminusharry
Summary: These are the games of the weekend: they spend another evening drenched in the hazy glow of the arcade corner, teasing and drinking and cheering with everyone else, playing friends-of-friends. It’s the very best of times until it isn’t – they’ve got it all perfectly under control until they don’t. Ginny makes a habit of spending the night at Harry’s place until she doesn’t. Then it’s time to leave the dancefloor, let the last song finish, and face the day.(It's a rare thing, finding someone you still like the next morning.)





	1. Let Me love

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about in three parts.
> 
> First, I had this fragment of a scene in my head: Harry, Ron and Hermione at a party, hanging out around a pool table. Ginny walks in - Harry turns around and sees her - the music swells, time slows down. Melodrama lighting. Second, this May, I listened to ZAYN's "Let Me" on repeat and heard only this FWB to Lovers AU. It became part of the soundtrack to this story instantly.
> 
> And third: in 2019, I lived in London. This story is full of anecdotes from my time in the city of my dreams. We're about to go to a party: based on a real party I went to this May, one of my favourite nights I spent there. I'm looking at the invitation right now - it's hanging on a new bedroom wall in a new city now.
> 
> This is a love story about Harry and Ginny as much as it is my love letter to London. I hope you like it.

_ **Let Me love** _

  


Spring 2019  
London, England

  


_i. but if you want to go out dancing, i know a place_

  


_Magic!, _reads the purple neon sign outside the graffiti-covered door.

A faint, thumping bassline reaches upwards from inside and curls its fingers into the chilly night. The pavement is still damp with rain when the young man comes down the street, half walking, half running, finally slowing down with a glance at his phone, making sure he’s got the right place.

The venue is far from flashy – an unassuming spot tucked away on the side of a street in South East London, a door at the bottom of a narrow metal staircase, waiting to open and swallow whole. These are the places where he and his friends spend all their very best Saturday nights: hidden multicolour gems in distant corners of the city, far off the beaten tracks of Zone 1.

It’s Dean and Seamus, always, who find them bars with cheekily titled drinks they’d never otherwise have known existed; pubs full of neon signs and film posters; small clubs with playlists they still talk about a week later. Ron still regularly brings up the place that shamelessly and unironically played Mr. Brightside five times in one night.

Atop the staircase, Harry leaves a 5-pound note in the doorman’s hand and begins his descent, careful not to slip on the steep steps that raindrops are still clinging to. Then he steps forward and lets the coloured lights envelop him completely.

The place is spacious and yet feels strangely intimate. A silver disco ball, a dozen strings of fairy lights, and multiple spotlights douse every wall in a glittering swirl of light and colour, bouncing around the room. The ceiling hangs low enough for Harry to press his palm up against it if he wants to, though it seems to be part of the appeal: it gives off the distinct impression of a house party without really being one, like they’re all back in uni and whiling away the weekend in someone’s basement again.

He grins to himself. They’ve outdone themselves.

The music is surprisingly good, too: niche enough to be remarkable without feeling like it’s trying too hard, a glorious inside joke wrapped in synthesizer and saxophones, interspersed, of course, with the generous amount of Britney Spears hit singles you’d expect from any self-respecting gay bar.

Harry even makes a point of telling Dean and Seamus that when he finds them. Seamus, who’s a head shorter than his boyfriend, clad in a white shirt with pink-and-blue suspenders, promptly presses a hand to his heart and says: “Harry, coming from you, that means everything.”

“Okay. Calm down.”

“You’re only the pickiest person I’ve ever met.”

“Go grab a drink from the bar”, Dean tells him, grinning broadly. “On the house. Opening night treat for the inner circle.”

“Thanks. Have Ron and Hermione got here yet?”

“‘round the bar and to the back.”

Harry stops by the bar and buys drinks for the three of them, leaving a generous tip. Then he follows the path Dean described and, sure enough, finds his best friends huddled together in front of an arcade game, where Ron is enthusiastically watching Hermione lose.

“To the right, to the right – _jump – knock him out knock him out knock him OUT –”_

“Ron, I can do this!”, she exclaims, frantically pushing buttons on the machine. Harry watches the pixelated Asterix she’s been manoeuvring get knocked out by a Roman and sink to the bottom of the screen. Bright orange letters spelling out GAME OVER pop up over his head.

“Guys”, he says.

“Harry!”, Ron says, moving away from behind Hermione to hug him hello. “You made it! Check it out, opening night present to the bar. And a quarter very well spent”, he assures Hermione, patting her on the shoulder. “You stuck it out ‘til the bitter end, love.”

“Opening night present from … let me guess, Luna?”

“‘Course”, says Ron cheerily, whose hair clashes horribly with the reds and pinks that drench every inch of the arcade corner, some tucked-away, glow-in-the-dark parallel universe. “It’s a shame she’s not here to see it in action.”

“Isn’t she still out of town?”, Hermione inquires, turning away from the game with what looked like little regret.

It was Ron who found Luna back when the two of them were on the student radio together, much like it was Ron who found most of the people that would eventually make up their circle of friends. They’ve always been a mismatched constellation of people now tentatively calling themselves adults, many intertwined duos and trios, couples and ex-couples, held together by shared uni days, shared dorms, shared Saturdays like this one.

“Magic beans”, Hermione once called them, pink-cheeked and tipsy, at a party years ago.

Her birthday party, Harry remembers. Her twentieth. Some small part of him felt terrible all night: some tugging heaviness he couldn’t place, some quiet dread.

Harry looked at Ron, looked at Hermione, glowing in the dark, standing arm in arm. He was nineteen years old, all his friends charging towards twenty.

“I haven’t seen that”, Ron said, and they laughed.

He was fine.

Luna is an oddity with a knack for finding them, too: what with travelling all the time, and living near Portobello Road Market, Harry reckons she has opportunity enough to hone the skill. None of them ever figured out exactly what she does – only that, since they graduated, she’s been gone more often than not. They’ve all hardly seen her.

Harry hands Hermione a bottle of cider. “Ron, do you fancy this strawberry-vodka monstrosity?”

“Cheers, mate.”

Harry met Ron on the first day of orientation, and they’ve been joined at the hip ever since – a friendship grown from Ron’s silent determination to take the quiet, awkward kid from West London under his wings and stubbornly refuse to let go. They were roommates all throughout uni and another year after that, until Ron and Hermione decided to move in together and get married at the ripe old age of twenty-three.

Harry kept the flat: they live close by and the three of them hang out at each other’s places so much it feels like they still all live together, anyway.

“You know who’s coming, though?”, Ron says, putting an arm around Hermione. “My sister is. You’ve met Ginny, right? Five feet of red hair, inappropriate jokes and outrageous football skills? Never shuts up?”

Harry grins. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, no wonder, she’s around even less then Luna. Match made in heaven, really. She promised me tonight, though – and Ginny doesn’t bail.”

“Are they still living together?”, Hermione asks, looking up at Ron.

He takes a long sip of his drink. “I guess so, yeah.”

Harry has listened to Ron and Hermione discuss the topic enough to know there’s little desire on anyone’s part to get into it, so he says: “Ron, what’s the high score on that game right now?”

Ron points a finger at him. “Don’t you dare.”

Harry grins. “Hold this.”

He hands Ron his drink (“Vodka and coke? What are you, eighteen?”) and switches places with Hermione, who then watches with mild interest as Harry secures a strong second place after Ron, miles ahead of Hermione’s third.

“Not gonna lie, you had me worried for a second there, mate”, Ron says, looking utterly pleased with the universe.

Hermione sighs. “How are you both so good at this stupid game? I didn’t even – ohh, Ron, I think I see her!”, she says, pointing across the room.

Harry turns around.

  


_ii._

Something about the green light behind her makes her all the more striking, the young woman looking around the small basement, carelessly running a hand through the shock of red hair dancing around her shoulders. She raises her arm to wave at Ron when she spots him, exposing a toned abdomen under the shimmery purple crop top. For a moment there, Harry can’t shake the feeling that she’s moving in slow motion somehow – his stomach lurches when she’s standing in front of them.

Ron and Hermione hug her hello, then she turns to him.

“Harry, isn’t it?”

Harry nods, stunned when she wraps an arm around him with ease.

“Uhm, yeah. Yeah, hi.”

Must have been the lights, he thinks wildly, blinking at her when she lets go.

“Nice to meet you”, she says. “Heard a lot about you.”

“You have?”, he asks, looking at Ron.

“Only terrible things”, she smirks.

Harry is rather alarmed when he feels himself break into a grin. She’s all crossed arms and quirked eyebrows and radiant smile – sunlight coming from nowhere possible, shining too brightly down here.

“Hey, have you lot christened this guy yet?”, Ginny says, strolling over to the pool table. “The place is amazing, I’m so proud of them. Can’t believe we’re finally seeing it.”

Ron watches her put down her bottle on the edge of the pool table, his chin resting on the rim of his own glass. “How’ve you been, Ginny?”

“Never better”, she says promptly. “Alright, are we doing this? I intend to beat Ron.”

Ron feigns offence when Ginny grins up at him, lightly elbowing her in the ribs.

“Yeah, let’s do it, definitely”, Harry says to everyone’s surprise, already reaching for the cue ball.

By the time they’ve started their second round of drinks, Ginny is well on her way to make her promise come true, Hermione is looking exasperated, and Harry suddenly halts in his movements, looking up. “Do I know this song?”

He waits for the first line – and there it is, unmistakable. “No _way.”_

“Is that a remix?”, says someone next to him, and when he turns to look, it’s Ginny, wide-eyed and intently listening to every beat as the first verse plays – different, but the same.

They stare at each other for a full second before they open their mouths at the same time and say: _“You know that song?!”_

There’s a stunned beat of disbelief.

“Of _course _I know that song!”, they yell in unison.

Ginny bounces up and down in excitement and puts down her bottle. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s dance.”

On the other side of the pool table, Ron snorts into his drink. “Good luck with that, Gin.”

Ginny looks so tragically disappointed Harry finds himself grinning again. Blimey, his drink must have been stronger than he realised. “What? Why?”

“Yeah, our Harry here doesn’t dance. Not to save his life.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at Ron. Just because he wants to prove him wrong, and because of the alcohol, but _definitely _not because of Ginny, he holds out his hand.

“Let’s do it.”

“Who _are _you?”, Ron says loudly, staring at him.

Ginny beams in delight and swiftly grabs Harry’s hand with her own. Leaving behind a very stunned Ron and Hermione, they slip from the small arcade corner to the middle of the room – not quite a dancefloor but an open space doused in coloured lights, enough room for a dozen bodies to jump to the beat.

“Am I dreaming?”, Ron says, looking down at his wife open-mouthed. “Did we slip into a parallel universe? How could you not _tell _me?”

Hermione shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, and that’s troubling, coming from you.”

A few feet away from them, Ginny turns to face Harry just in time for the first chorus. She looks absolutely overjoyed, tossing her hair around as she dances, and Harry is pretty sure something is wrong with his face.

“You’re a shite dancer”, she yells over the music, grinning at him.

“What?”

“I said you’re a great dancer!”

“You take that back!”

She throws her head back laughing, reaching for his arm.

Harry does his best to mirror her movements, swaying and jumping to the beat until the song gets to the bridge and they take a second to catch their breaths. Harry is, for some reason, so caught up in watching Ginny brush her hair out of her face he doesn’t notice his best friends have crept around the room, watching from the other end.

“I can’t believe them”, Ron says into Hermione’s ear.

She watches Harry break into a grin when Ginny spins on the spot, throwing her hair over her shoulder.

“Look how hard he’s trying”, Hermione says fondly. “You know how much he hates dancing.”

“For _y__ears _I’ve tried to get him to loosen up at these things, and Ginny just waltzes in here and bats her eyelashes, and that’s all it takes?” Ron shakes his head, looking down at his wife. “I have eyelashes!”

Hermione pats his arm, chuckling under her breath. They turn back to the dancefloor in unison, Ron still huffing in disbelief – watching in silence until Hermione finally says it out loud.

“Do you think we should be worried?”

Ron doesn’t answer: they both know, when they look at each other, that they’re thinking the same thing.

Long after the song has ended and Hermione has disappeared to the bathroom, Ginny finally makes her way off the dancefloor and finds Ron sitting at the bar by himself.

“Okay”, she says loudly, slipping on the bar stool next to him. “I can’t believe I’m doing this and I’m _definitely _blaming the alcohol. But how _dare _you never mention to me that your best friend from uni is, like, the cutest person alive?”

Ron shifts on his own stool and smirks at her over his drink, eyes narrowed in amusement. “Harry? Really?”

Ginny points at him with a surprisingly steady hand for a self-confessed lightweight. “You wipe that look off your face and tell me if he’s available. By which I mean single. And … into girls.”

“Well … single and into girls, yes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ron really takes his time with the next sip, letting his glass hit the dark wooden surface of the bar’s countertop with a loud _plonk. _“Uhm … Harry doesn’t really do relationships.”

When she looks around, she finds Harry near the speakers across the room, where he’s nursing his drink by the side of the dancefloor, scrolling through his phone. He looks a little lost without Ron and Hermione by his side.

“Challenge accepted”, she says.

Ron suddenly looks serious, which Ginny finds _very _annoying, especially in her considerably drunken state.

“Okay, what? Are you going to tell me or do I have to go over there and find out for myself?”

Ron looks positively alarmed at that idea, which pleases Ginny greatly. “He’s just – been burned before, alright?”

She props her elbow up on the countertop, quirking an eyebrow. Ron groans.

“Look, Harry’s just not very … casual like that. He has, like, zero middle ground when it comes to this stuff.”

“And?”

“And so far it’s always ended really badly. It’s been two years”, he adds, when Ginny opens her mouth. “He’s not dated anyone for _two whole years_.”

“_Who _in their right mind would break up with him?”, Ginny yells over the music – which is definitely the beer speaking, but who can blame her? She’s definitely right. “You’ve never looked at your best friend, have you, Ron?”

“I’m married, you see.”

“Yeah, whatever”, she says, still watching Harry over the heads of the dancing crowd. “You still have eyes, no?”

Ron sighs. “Listen, I’m not telling you _not _to try. Just don’t get your hopes up. And … do me a favour and don’t start anything with him unless you’re really, really sure.”

“Jesus Christ, Ron, I’m not going to walk over there and propose marriage, I’m just going to talk to him!”

“Besides”, Ron says, as though suddenly remembering. “Are you sure it’s not a bit early, you know …”

Ginny throws him a glance. “Don’t.”

“Alright, alright. Just go easy on him. Please?”

She hops off the stool, grabs her drink, and pats him on the back in passing. “Marriage’s turned you into a real Mum friend, you know that?”

“You’d be too, if you were Harry’s best mate”, Ron mutters into his drink.

Ginny grins and turns away.

But when she’s dived back into the middle of the party,  the deep sea of blue and purple and pink, where a dozen people  she knows  are  cramped together and  jumping up and down to the beat  around her , Harry is nowhere to be found anymore.  She circles around the  venue, to the speakers and  back to the bar and the arcade corner three times before  heading to the door , climb ing up the metal stairs into the  chilly  spring night .  _Magic!_ ’s graffiti-covered door closes behind her,  shutting the music  down below in the basement.  L ate-night Camberwell  is  impossibly quiet  without it .

“Smoking break?”, someone asks, and Ginny looks over.

The buzz of alcohol leaves her out here, the delirious, swaying haze of it all, but when she looks at him, he’s every bit as gorgeous as he was down in the brightly coloured thick of it all. What little light his phone screen emits carves out every feature on his face, the way his nose curves into his eyebrows and his eyes peer out from behind the dark-framed glasses, cutting right through her.

“No, I don’t smoke”, she says, slowly walking over to him. “You?”

“Cigarettes? No. Just … catching my breath.”

He’s leaning against the black railing that lines the pavement, breaking into a grin that makes Ginny eye him suspiciously.

“What?”

“Pot once.” His eyes shift over to her. “That just made me weird and existential, though.”

“So, regular.”

“Bite me.”

Ginny chuckles. “I think I just got reckless. Lots of stupid ideas – zero fear.”

“Which I’m assuming is your regular, then”, he says, smirking.

She props herself up on the railing next to him, close enough for them to touch if they wanted to. What few stars peek through the clouds sway over her head when she leans back far enough to look. The attempt to stand up straight again nearly makes her topple over: Harry grabs her arm before she can fall and takes his time with letting go again.

Ginny stretches her arms to either side until she’s somewhat regained her balance and tries to suppress her laughter – spends a solid minute trying to and wondering what’s so goddamn funny, but only ends up dragging Harry right down with her until they’re both grinning like idiots.

“You alright?”

“Great. Just … a _real _lightweight.”

He watches her lean back against the railing again: slowly this time, until she’s propped up her elbows on either side of herself and beams at him. “There.”

Harry snorts, face wildly torn between amusement and bewilderment.

“How come I didn’t see you at the wedding?”, he asks. “Feel like I wouldn’t have missed you.”

Ginny usually recognises a line like that when she hears one, but when she looks over at him, she’s floored by the sheer sincerity. She’s a bit startled that it makes her insides jump as much as it does.

“I saw you”, she admits, eyes sliding over to him with a wicked grin. “We never talked, though. Tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure if I thought you seemed like a prick or not.”

Harry stares at her. “Why?”

“C’mon, you spent an awful lot of the reception by the bar. By yourself.”

He redirects his gaze at the dirty concrete to his feet, and Ginny finds she weirdly misses his eyes locked with hers, the unique rush that that brought.

“Just wasn’t in a huge wedding mood exactly”, he says, smirking. “Didn’t want to ruin it for them.”

“Hm”, she says, deciding what to make of that. “Ron did mention you’re a bit of a lost cause when it comes to romance.”

Harry snorts. “Been talking about me, have you?”

“Maybe I was curious”, she says, pleased to see what that does to his face.

Even better, she has the distinct impression that his breath hitches when he looks at her again, green eyes sharp and searching.

“You were watching me”, he says. “At the wedding.”

Damnit, he’s good.

And he’s coming closer, she notices – very slowly and for no good reason at all.

Ginny mirrors his movements, leaning towards him, until she can feel every flat breath between them. It sends a tingle up her neck and all the way down her spine, makes every limb buzz with impatience.

“Still think I’m a prick?”, he asks softly.

“You reckon that might have been rash?”

“You did mention lots of stupid ideas.”

“Yeah”, she says, heartbeat thumping under the sheer top when his eyes shift to her mouth.

She decides to ride the high, turning her whole body towards him.

“Like a _really _stupid idea”, she says, “would be asking you if I can kiss you right now.”

  


_iii. sweet baby, our sex has meaning_

  


His lips on hers are soft, but the kiss is firm, all false pretence of patience quickly falling away. Ginny takes a step closer until she can feel the heat radiating off of him, and his hand finds her waist, holding on. She reaches up to rake her fingers through his hair and can feel, more than she can hear, the way he draws in his breath when she does.

When they break apart, it’s gasping and flush-faced. Ginny begrudgingly lets the hand that has been playing with the messy strands at the back of his head fall on his shoulder and lets the other linger on his arm. He makes a point of looking, so she knows he’s noticed, but he doesn’t shake her off. She thinks she might have caught a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

She moves to kiss him again, but to her surprise, he stops her.

“Listen, just to … I’m not interested in being anybody’s rebound.”

Ginny eyes him for a second. “Ron told you, huh?”

Harry withdraws his gaze. “Him and Hermione mentioned something last week.”

Ginny sighs. “Great.”

He doesn’t comment when she lets go of him, but he watches her do it, and she stays close.

“Luna and I are on good terms”, she says simply. “I’m not in need of a rebound, so everything I’m doing right now, I’m doing because I want to. Okay?”

Harry nods slowly. “Mind if I ask what happened?”

She shrugs. “I’d rather die a slow and painful death than admit I actually have, like, needs as a girlfriend, apparently.”

There’s a short silence, then Ginny says: “So that killed the mood.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“It’s fine. I’d rather you asked than guessed.”

She turns to look at him, and he nods, but his gaze is blatantly drawn to her mouth again, and he’s not even making an effort to hide it. It makes Ginny’s insides tingle, and when she takes a step towards him again, he catches her eyes almost immediately, tilting his head.

It’s a much longer kiss this time. More tongue, too. Harry’s hand slides up her back, easily slipping under the thin fabric of her crop top, and Ginny is positively clutching the front of his t-shirt when they break apart, only long enough for Harry to mutter: “You don’t, by any chance, wanna come back to my place, do you?”

She’s so caught up in wanting to kiss him again she can’t quite figure out if she saw the question coming or not. But they’re warm limbs clinging to each other in a chilly London night, buzzing kids snogging outside a party in the early hours of the morning – she knew the answer before he asked.

“I do, actually”, she says, holding his gaze, though it comes at the expense of looking away from his lips. “Do you live nearby?”

“It’s a bit of a trip.” He pulls out his phone. “We can make the next bus.”

Ginny lets go of his t-shirt, regretting it greatly. “Okay. I’m gonna go grab my jacket and … make up some excuse.”

“Right”, he says, as though just remembering the rest of the world. “Yeah. See you back here in ten?”

“Done.”

So they climb back down the stairs and lose sight of one another amidst the party, the sheer chaos of the blue and purple lights. They say their best goodbyes to their friends and slip back out the door, stealing away into the night. Just atop the stairs, they bump into each other again, ten feet tall and grinning like teenagers. The have to chase the night bus up the whole street, drunk on all of it, catching it with burning lungs and beaming grins – they’re giggling and gasping for air as they stumble up the stairs of the doubledecker and spend the whole ride snogging in the front seats on the upper level, mouths crashing into each other at every stop.

“Oh my god, our stop!”

“You’re _shitting _me –”

They earn deathly glares from every passenger on the lower level as they come thundering down the stairs and jump on the street so hard their knees want to buckle. Ginny spins on the spot, hardly containing her laughter.

“Harry, where the fuck did you take us?”

“Uhmmm …”

Harry bumps into her as they stumble out of the way of a few passers-by and pulls out his phone, typing very slowly. “So, we’re, uh, just north of the river, actually–”

“Are we _supposed _to be?”

“No!”

“Oh my _god.”_

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s not, I’m just really fucking pissed”, Ginny says, and they promptly dissolve into snorts, stumbling around the pavement.

“Okay okay okay”, Harry mutters, his face scrunched up as he looks at his screen with utmost concentration. “We’re, uh, right around of the corner of Leadenhall Market. Brick Lane is like, twenty minutes _that _way? And _we _… we’re headed the _other _way.”

He illustrates all this by pointing his whole arm in either direction, spinning dangerously on the spot as he does. Ginny grabs his arm, just in case. To stop him from falling, obviously.

“You’re sure?”

“Somewhat”, he says fervently. “The next bus is gonna be, uhm – well, ages …”

Ginny looks at the bashful grin on his face and shrugs. “Fuck it, let’s just walk.”

“It’s a bit of a walk back to mine”, he says.

“And?”

Harry seems to be aiming for an exasperated sigh, but ends up snorting again. Ginny watches him shake his head, absolutely delighted.

“This is one of your stupid ideas, yeah?”

“All my stupid ideas are brilliant”, she beams. “C’mon.”

So they make their way back to the Thames laughing like idiots about the whole thing until they’re out of breath, and then, inevitably, they sway a bit too hard at the next corner and promptly break into giggles again.

“So, hold on”, Harry says after a few steps of wordless giggles, as though he’s regaining some much needed clarity. “What else did Ron tell you about me?”

Ginny grins at him. “Uhmmm. Oh, You’re very ride or die, apparently. Can’t do casual.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “I see.”

“What, you don’t think so?”

“Well, I don’t exactly run all my one-night stands past him, no.”

“Excuse me, _all _your one-night stands?”, she asks. He seems a bit taken aback by the fact that it excites her as much as it does: his grin gets all weird when she grabs his arm, her mouth wide-open and beaming. Because he’s drunk, she decides.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Oh, right”, Ginny says, who’s been enjoying herself so much she honestly forgot why they’re on the way back to his place at the two in the morning in the first place.

When they turn into the next street, a shadow comes stumbling towards them out of the darkness, and their laughter falters. The silhouette walks into the deep yellow light of a street lamp: it’s a man.

“You ‘n me, ‘round the corner, what d’ya say?”, he mumbles as he walks by. Ginny walks ahead with a completely stony face, picking up the pace.

“I’m sorry”, Harry says, catching up with her.

Ginny shrugs. “You’ve kept most of them away tonight.”

Harry blinks. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I guess you look like my boyfriend or something. Most of these guys care about the boyfriend more than the girl.”

Harry seems somewhat stunned by that. “I look like your boyfriend?”

“_That’s _the part of this conversation that shocks you?”, she asks, smirking faintly.

“Right. I’m sorry, that sucks.”

Ginny shrugs and shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her massive jeans jacket.

“So”, she says, “dish.”

Harry sighs.

“Well, I had a girlfriend”, he says. “Who, uhm, ended up dumping me. Then I had a boyfriend, and that went _really _terribly, and then … well, I pretty much already knew I was shite at the whole thing. So now I’m that prick who’s sad and single and who everyone pities because his two best friends are married. To _each other_, as well.”

Ginny chuckles.

“Bi, then”, she says, patting his arm with a flat grin. “Pan?”

“Bi’s good.” Pointing at the patch on the sleeve of her jacket, he adds: “You too?”

“That’s right”, she says, grinning at the flag sewn into the worn-out denim on her upper arm.

At last, they make it to London Bridge, the Thames sparkling in the night, the Shard splitting the cloudy sky in half.

“Did you grow up around here?”, Ginny asks, the wind tugging at her hair, shoving her fists deeper into her jacket pockets.

Harry shakes his head. “Nah, Chiswick.”

She promptly breaks into laughter again. _“Chiswick?_ What the fuck is wrong with your parents?”

They tumble around in fits of giggles again.

“Let them live, they’re dead”, Harry says. “Hold on, I just realised that makes no sense.”

“Wait wait wait”, Ginny says, halting so suddenly it almost knocks her over. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I – no, I’m not”, he says. “They died in a car crash when I was, like, a year old.”

“Shit_”_, Ginny says loudly, looking up at him. “I’m sorry. Who’d you grow up with?”

“Uh, my grandparents. Dad’s side.”

“Shit.”

They walk in silence for a few beats until Ginny says: “Stuff like this doesn’t really compute when I’m drunk. But, uhm, I'm really sorry, that sucks."

“No, you’re good. I _way _prefer that over … I don’t know. Some people get so sympathetic about it, but, like, in a really weird way.”

Ginny snorts and looks over at him. “How come, I wonder?”

“It’s just, I get that it’s really sad and everything, it is, but I don't know how to explain to people that I don’t really remember them, so I can't really _miss _them like that. I think sometimes it makes everyone else sadder than it does me, because I don’t really know anything else. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to be missing, you know? It just … apparently makes me sound like a bit of an arse when I say it out loud like that.”

“Just a tad”, Ginny says, half-smirking.

By the time they’ve put the Shard behind them, passed Borough Station, and, at last, reached his building, she’s lost track of time and sobered up somewhat, though she’s still wide awake and buzzing with anticipation when they finally make it to his door. Harry looks over his shoulder when they enter and lets her take in her surroundings while he disappears in what looks like a tiny kitchen, glowing yellow in the dark.

“Do you want anything to drink?”, he calls.

“Because I’ve really proven I can handle my alcohol tonight?”, Ginny grins, spinning slowly in his living room.

He looks at her through the open door, expression amused. “Water?”

“Right. Yeah, actually, thanks.”

She watches him walk over, pleased to notice that by the time he hands her a glass, he’s standing closer than technically required. It definitely wasn’t necessary to touch her hand, either, or to lean into her ear like that to ask:

“What d’you think?”

Instead she nods to the posters over the worn-out sofa and says: “I was surprised you knew that song back at _Magic!_, but it appears I’ve wandered into the home of a proper music snob.”

“In my defense, a few of those are Ron’s”, Harry says, a warm smirk pulling on his mouth.

“How many? Because I guarantee you, Ron can name about three Queen songs.”

“He can name five if he tries, and I know that for a fact, because I can name more, so he still had to do a shot that one time.”

Ginny snorts. “Big music fan, yeah? Please don’t tell me you’re hiding a vinyl collection around here.”

“I have a Spotify subscription”, he says, a quiet kind of snark in his voice that makes Ginny grin. Her reply gets caught in her throat when she feels his hand slide down her back, lingering there.

“It was the same party that started the grilled cheese tradition, actually”, Harry says, voice outrageously casual considering the shudder he just sent down her spine. Maybe he’s not even aware he’s doing it, she thinks wildly. “We came home and were _starving, _for some reason. It was four in the fucking morning, mind you, and we were standing in our kitchen making grilled cheese sandwiches. And we did it every party after that, until he moved out, no matter what. I kid you not, one time we got home so late we just had them for breakfast. It was still dark outside.”

“Yeah”, says Ginny, “I don’t really want to talk about my brother right now.”

She turns to face him, and his hand easily comes to rest on her hip when she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him. Harry reciprocates enthusiastically, pulling her into him, and they stand swaying in his dark living room, a tangle of gasping breaths and the soft shuffling sounds of hands sliding over fabric. His tongue is slow and exploring in her mouth, and just as Ginny catches herself thinking that maybe this is all a terrible idea, he pulls her in further, and her knees want to buckle at the feeling of his hand tangled in her hair and the soft stubble on his chin under her palm.

“Bedroom”, she mutters, pulling at his t-shirt, her hand sliding up his stomach and to his chest.

He has the audacity to chuckle at that.

“Patience, patience”, he hums, but promptly pulls her backwards, and they all but stumble through what Ginny faintly registers as his bedroom door. It falls shut behind her, and moments later, she feels herself pressed against it, Harry’s hands roaming up her hips. Ginny pushes him away only long enough to shake off her jacket and top, gasping when her bare back makes contact with the wooden door behind her. In her haze, she lifts her legs to wrap them around his waist and grins at his unsteady breathing.

“You all right there?”, she hums into the side of his neck.

“Yeah”, he mutters. “You?”

“Wh-”

She squeals when his hands find her butt and she’s lifted from the door. Moments later, she’s pressed into Harry’s mattress, laughter getting caught in her throat when their mouths crash into each other again. He lets out a noise, half gasp, half moan, when she pulls him on top of her. In her enthusiasm, she knocks his glasses off his face mid-pulling his t-shirt over his head; somewhere in the tangled mess around his head she can hear him snort and promptly breaks into giggles again.

When they’ve finally untangled him, Harry props himself up on his elbows, his arms on either side of her head, taking in the sight with a grin, Ginny’s fiery hair spread out all over his pillow.

“Don’t get used to the view”, she tells him, smirking as she lets a hand trail up his arm. “I’m not staying over.”

She really believes that.

  


There’s a moment between sleeping and waking in which she’s perfectly unaware of the absurdity of her situation, but the daylight doesn’t poke through Harry’s window so much as it’s knocking both fists on the glass, so it doesn’t last long. Between the dull throbbing in her head and the strange buzzing sound close by, it’s a thoroughly unpleasant awakening.

“Thasyours”, someone mutters next to her.

Oh.

It comes back to her in film stills, in flashes drowned in purple and red: Harry’s lips on the street outside the bar. His hands digging into her hips under the jacket on the doubledecker bus. Her back pressed against his bedroom door. His mouth at her hips, wandering lower.

She rolls to the edge of the mattress and reaches for her phone, half-buried under the clothes scattered on the floor.

Her clothes.

Luna in the picture on her lockscreen. Luna’s unread text flashing at her from the notification bar.

_Hey, can we talk when I get home?_

Ginny pulls herself into a sitting position as quietly as she can, so as to not disturb him, and types:

_Yeah, of course._

Beside her, Harry stirs, but does not wake up.

Ginny pulls her knees to her chest under the blanket – how did that get there? – and lets the view change her mind.

The duvet is only loosely draped over his hips, exposing warm, brown skin, muscles that move with every slow breath he takes. Her insides tingle at the memory of fingernails sliding down his shoulders, the feeling of his fist in her hair.

When he does wake, it’s with a huff and a groan, and Ginny hastily looks away, traitorous smirk tugging at her mouth.

“Right”, he mumbles to himself, when he opens his eyes far enough to spot her and, from the look of it, needs a moment to remember why she’s there. “Mornin’.”

“Hiya.”

It’s not the first time she’s gone home with someone and stayed over, either because she was too tired or just too far away from her own place to bother leaving right after. She usually sneaks out, though, just leaves a note or a text, happy to avoid what is usually a pretty awkward goodbye.

It’s a rare thing, finding someone you still like the next morning.

He doesn’t look particularly bothered that his one-night stand watched him sleep, either, he just rolls out of bed, slips into a pair of boxers and a Queen t-shirt, and rubs the back of his head with his hand, like maybe messing it up further is exactly what his ridiculous case of bedhead needs.

Ginny grins.

“Uhm”, he says. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

He chuckles to himself and nods his head towards the kitchen, inviting her to follow him. “Eggs on toast?”

“That’ll get you into my pants anytime.”

He looks back at her, still a bit dazed from sleep, it seems.

Ginny winks.

She slips into the clothes she left strewn across his bedroom floor the night before, every item bringing back a memory of it being hastily stripped off and tossed across the room. By the time she’s dressed and remembers she needs to shower, she’s tempted to ask him to join her.

Her phone buzzes again when she turns to his bedroom door.

Ginny opens it, mouth dry.

_I booked the flight._


	2. & you got me, runaway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written, in part, amidst the rush of a little New Year's Eve house party and a cosy writing session on New Year's Day. It's imperfect and glittery: thank you Kay, my favourite person on the whole entire planet, for pushing me to finish it these past few days. Love you the most always.
> 
> Drink responsibly, kids!

**& you got me, runaway**

  
  


_Autumn 2014_

_Ron finds him in an old pub on the outskirts of town, tucked away in a quiet corner deep in South East London. He slides through the tables into the room at the bank, where the little stage, draped in gold foil and heavy crimson curtains, twinkles merrily over the room._

“_Hermione sends her love”, he grins, sliding into the empty seat at the bar, next to Harry._

_Harry gives him a non-committal grunt._

“_Oh, spare me the death stare”, Ron says, thumping him on the back as the barman passes them their drinks. “It’s your first proper heartbreak –” (Harry snorts) “– might as well make an occasion out of it. Hermione said to drink lots of water, by the way. So, what happened?”_

“_I don’t know”, Harry mutters._

_Ron raises an eyebrow._

“_I really don’t”, Harry says heatedly. “She just – didn’t think I cared, I guess. Who can blame her.”_

_Ron considers him over his drink, frowning._

“_You’re sure she didn’t date your evil twin or something?”_

_Harry shrugs and doesn’t reply._

_It’s almost midnight when they leave the Ivy House: they wander down the quiet street in wordless understanding, past the moonlit park back to their bus stop. Harry feels his misery ebb away when he looks at Ron walking beside him, the novelty of this fierce companionship rushing through him._

_Through the shadowy trees, on the dark horizon, they can see the London Eye glow in the dark from afar, small like a thumb raised against the gloomy night sky, a blazing red moon._

  
  


  
  


_Spring 2017_

_The glow on Ron and Hermione’s faces is practically blinding when they open their door to greet him, some strange new magic. Harry smiles at them despite the ache in his chest, lets them chatter away and fuss over him, the sheer joy almost infectious._

_He’s had this suspicion for a while, he thinks, watching Ron dig a bottle of champagne out of the fridge: it seemed inevitable the way all the very best and very worst things in life do. Much as they have him over for dinner all the time, between Ron’s all-caps invitation, Hermione’s excited (though consistently typo-free) rambling in their group chat, and the simple, extraordinary fact that it’s _them, _all the signs seem to prove him right._

_He just didn’t expect it to feel quite so much like a cruel joke the universe is playing on him._

“_Well – like we said, we have big news”, Ron says quickly when they’ve finally settled down at the dinner table, face looking all warm, Hermione’s hand clutched firmly in his own. “We – bloody hell, will you stop looking at your phone?”_

_Harry looks up. He hits the off button and turns it over, screen flat on the tabletop, and picks up his knife with his best attempt at a neutral face. “Sorry.”_

_They look at him like they just caught him sneaking through the front door after his curfew. Like they’re trying to figure out if they should scold or comfort him._

“_What’s going on?”, Ron demands instantly._

“_Nothing.”_

_Hermione clears her throat._

_Harry makes a point of looking at his meal before he answers. “Uh. I think we … broke up.”_

“_You _what?”

“_What do you mean, you ‘think’?”_

“_Can we please not do this right now?”_

_They rush to his side in an instant, and Hermione quickly puts an arm on his shoulder, which Harry doesn’t find soothing or comforting. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I really –”_

_Harry doesn’t know where to look, self-loathing stinging in his chest._

“_I really don’t want to talk about it”, he says softly._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ron throw a glance at Hermione. In a true testament to the severity of the situation, she merely shrugs._

“_Well, we’re here for you, alright?”, Ron says, patting him on the back._

“_Fuck’s sake, it’s not like I’m dying!”_

“_You know, you’re right, you don’t seem upset at all”, Ron says. “Our bad, carry on.”_

“_How do we fix it?”, Hermione asks gently._

_Harry almost laughs._

“_There isn’t anything to fix, okay?”, he blurts out, holding up his phone as Ron and Hermione sink bank into their chairs, dinner forgotten. “He read these five hours ago and never replied.”_

_It’s a whole stack of texts, flashing at them across the table._

_They’re all Harry’s._

“_Maybe he’s busy”, Hermione suggests._

“_And the whole bit this morning when he said ‘it’s over, Harry’ and picked up his stuff while I was gone was just for the laughs, right?”_

“_Hey!”, Ron says sharply._

“_Harry, that’s terrible”, she says immediately, not even waiting to hear his apology, and reaches over to place a hand on his shoulder._

_The stinging in Harry’s chest comes rushing back to him with full force: he looks away, can’t bear to see their sympathetic faces right now, their bottomless pity. Ron sees right through him, and Hermione sees right through him, and, worst of all, Harry knows exactly what they’re looking at._

“_It doesn’t matter. I just – I give up. Please, let’s … just have dinner. You lot said you had news.”_

“_Shit, yeah”, Ron says, looking at Hermione. “We – uhm …”_

_They look at each other. Harry watches them silently communicate, lips barely moving as they debate what to do. After a few seconds of pointed glances and careful nods in Harry’s general direction, they turn back to face him._

“_This is awful timing, Harry, we’re really sorry”, Hermione says._

_Ron reaches over to take her hand again, but looks at Harry._

“_Hermione and I are getting married.”_

_Harry smiles and rounds the table to throw his arms around them._

_They talk about nothing else for the rest of the night: in a few weeks, when they’re done talking Harry through the worst of it, they watch from the side of the dancefloor as he throws himself into the next thing anyway. And when it crashes and burns, as it must, they do what they can to catch him._

  
  


  
  


_Summer 2017_

“_Bit of a déja vu”, Ron says, taking his seat at the bar once more. “Hi. You look like shit.”_

_Indeed, the whole ordeal feels terribly familiar: what’s worse, Harry doesn’t even seem to be in the mood for a snarky response or a murderous glance. He simply continues twisting his glass on the wooden bartop, expression empty._

“_Hermione’s worried about you”, Ron says. “Spit it out, will you? What’d he do?”_

_Harry slowly shakes his head, more to himself than to Ron._

“_He didn’t do anything”, Harry mutters. “It was me. I ended it.”_

_Ron looks at him, at the pile of misery that is his best friend, with an odd sinking feeling._

“_Oh”, he says softly, biting back words like, ‘that was fast’, and, more importantly, ‘that doesn’t seem like you at all’. _

_Instead, he places a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You know … Hermione and I were talking –”_

“_Of course you were” Harry mutters darkly._

“_Oh, give me a fucking break, you knew we would. It was too soon, mate, that’s all, after –”_

“_Yeah”, Harry says. “I get it.”_

_Ron sighs, looking around the pub over Harry’s shoulder. In all the years they’ve lived in the city, it hasn’t changed, some strange, aching time capsule._

“_We have _got _to find a new place to drink”, he says._

_On their way back to the bus stop, they pause to look for the London Eye peaking through the trees on the cloudy horizon, as they always do. _

_It never reveals itself._

  
  


Summer 2019

  
  


_iv. these are the games of the weekend, we pretend that we just don’t care (but we care)_

  
  


It turns into a two-night stand the next time they see each other, and it’s all downhill from there.

Spring slips into a burning red summer between nights spent on opposite teams around the pool table. These become their weekend rituals: they spend another evening drenched in the hazy glow of the arcade corner, teasing and drinking and cheering with everyone else, playing friends-of-friends.

The competitiveness that crackles like electricity around the pool table is entirely friendly. Polite, even. To a stranger looking in, there is nothing here that belongs entirely to the two of them: don't suspect it, and the glances don't linger, the steady back-and-forth of jokes is that of two people making casual, if pleasant, conversation. The brushing of hands is innocent, accidental. They only stand close to each other because they're cramped around the pool table with half a dozen friends and only end up next to each other by chance.

There is nothing here that sets these two apart, it all seems to say: nothing that pulls them back down into _Magic!_'s multicolour nights with magnetic force, a little deeper and more dangerous each time.

It’s the very best of times until it isn’t – they’ve got it all perfectly under control until they don’t. Ginny makes a habit of spending the night at Harry’s place until she doesn’t.

They grow reckless as the night goes on. Harry's hand starts brushing along the small of Ginny's back, the inch of bare skin between her jeans and t-shirt, for no good reason at all. Ginny starts standing unnecessarily close and touching his arm when she talks to him.

Harry’s eyes graze her lips, unabashed.

In the end, it always goes like this: they share a glance that lingers and spirals out of control. So they make up an excuse and disappear from the group, a minimum of five minutes apart, and slip through _Magic!_’s only bathroom door. The tension comes crashing down around them like waves by the time Ginny has wrapped her legs around Harry’s hips, her back pressed against the wall shaking from the bass beat on the other side.

They sneak out of the front door and into the night like criminals on the run, stumble on the next doubledecker bus back to Harry’s flat, and two nights turn into three, then five, then ten.

They never tell anyone, and they never ask each other – or themselves – why.

“How long are you gonna let them think you’re that thick?”, Parvati asks on one of such nights, after Harry and Ginny have long made their exit, smirk sharpened by black lipstick and high cheekbones. She’s standing near the Pac-man machine, one arm wrapped loosely around Lavender’s shoulders, black leather jacket glowing midnight blue under the disco lights.

Ron, who is handing out the next round of drinks, shares a grin with Hermione, and shrugs. “Just until it gets boring.”

“Or they figure you out”, Lavender says. Parvati laughs, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

“They’re not gonna figure us out”, Ron says warmly, handing Lavender a beer. “They’re idiots.”

  
  


But around the same time that Ginny slips out of Harry’s door the next morning, Ron and Hermione are rubbing sleep out of their eyes a little while away, chattering quietly over the whistling and bubbling of their kettle. Hermione wanders around their little kitchen, hair sticking up from her head in every direction, and accepts a cup of coffee from Ron’s hands with a grateful smile. Then, as though simply continuing a conversation, she says: “Even given that they _are _idiots and we know that – you really think we needn’t worry?”

Ron reaches for his own steaming mug and turns to face her with a somewhat weary grin, eyes puffy from sleep. “Wouldn’t be Harry if I wasn’t at least a little bit worried about him, love.”

She chews her bottom lip. “From what we’ve gathered, they’re really just – well …”

“Doing it”, says Ron, making a face. “Not something I want to imagine over breakfast, actually. Toast?”

“Please.”

Hermione puts her coffee down on the table with a soft _clonk _and wraps her arms around her husband’s waist, humming into his shoulder.

“You know her better than I do”, she says. “Is Ginny going to get attached? She seemed to have a bit of a thing for him anyway …”

“That’s _not _a part of Ginny’s life I want to know anything about, thanks”, Ron says, sounding aghast.

Hermione chuckles. “I’m just thinking … does it all feel awfully familiar to you, too?”

Ron turns to face her, curling a strand of bushy brown hair around his long finger.

“What’re you saying?”, he asks, though he knows.

She sighs. “Are they idiots in love?”

The toaster pops behind them before Ron can reply.

  
  


“Harry, can I talk to you?”

He’s leaning against Ron and Hermione’s kitchen counter, fork poking around in a plate of dinner leftovers, while Ron has (with a pointed glance at Hermione) disappeared to find a bottle of wine.

“You and Ginny are having sex”, Hermione states plainly.

Harry chokes on his food. He looks up at her with something closely resembling horror: she might as well have walked in on them.

“And?”

“That’s all it is, then?”

“Is it _really _any of your business?”

She crosses her arms and gives him a stern look that would make her mother-in-law proud. “So?”

Harry groans. “Yes, that’s all it is. Fuck’s sake.”

“So you’re – what, ‘friends with benefits’” – she puts it into exaggerated air quotes that don’t indicate approval – “is that it?”

Harry winces at the word choice, flush creeping rapidly up his neck. “If you have to call it that.”

Hermione eyes him for a moment, choosing her next words very carefully. “And you’re sure that’s a good idea?”

She has a way of saying things like this that really used to drive Harry up the wall, though he’s eventually given up on fighting it.

“Yes”, he says savagely, “why wouldn’t it be?”

“Friends with benefits doesn't seem like you”, she says quietly. “I mean, are you sure that’s what you want?”

Right there and then, he looks as though he mostly wants to disappear: dissolve on the spot and forget he was ever having this conversation with her. He usually doesn’t, and for good reason.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, maybe friends with benefits is exactly what I want right now!”

When Hermione doesn’t respond, simply continues to look concerned, Harry puts his plate down, face betraying a flicker of annoyance. “Ron put you up to this little intervention?”

“It was a joint decision”, she says, frowning.

Harry almost laughs. All these talking-to’s he’s given them about co-parenting him, and yet.

But however much he hates being put on the spot like this, or Hermione’s knack for making him feel just a _little _bit patronised, there’s something about that pitying expression on her face that stings far worse. She has a way of making him feel like she’s seeing right through him, like he’s an idiot for ever believing it would be fine.

(Ron sees right through him, and Hermione sees right through him –)

“We’re just worried about you”, she says, when he wants to say, _I’m a grown fucking man, _and, _I make my own bad decisions, thank you very much._

“Well, don’t be.”

Hermione sighs, but drops the topic.

  
  


_v. and i snuck in through the garden gate every night that summer just to seal my fate_

  
  


“Wankers”, Ginny says through a mouthful of cereal, bare legs dangling off Harry’s tiny kitchen table. “Friends with benefits _totally _works.”

Her hair is catching sunlight through Harry’s kitchen window. Sometimes he thinks he’s never going to get used to seeing her like this: that she’s around after the party has ended, a real human girl, drenched in broad daylight.

He leans back against his counter, grinning faintly. “That is what this is, then?”

Ginny suddenly looks solemn. “Harry, I like you a lot, but this is moving way too fast. It’s too soon to put a label –”

She pauses when she looks at him, his laden spoon frozen in mid-air.

“I’m taking the piss”, she says, snorting. “Jesus, your face.”

“Good”, he says. “Just keeping you on your toes.”

“Yeah, right.”

She chews in silence for a moment. When she looks up at him, Harry notices the glint in her eyes somewhat suspiciously.

“Guess we’ll have to prove it to them, yeah?”

He grins. “Is that s’pposed to be an invitation?”

Ginny raises her chin. “It’s a call to action. C’mon, we’ll shake on it. We’re gonna be the greatest friends with benefits London’s _ever_ seen.”

Harry laughs, reaching for the hand she’s holding out.

“To being spectacular friends with benefits, then”, he says, putting his empty bowl in the sink. “Right, I’ve got to go.”

“Or”, Ginny says thoughtfully, “you could _not _go to work, and we could seal the deal –”

“That’s – incredibly tempting, believe me, but I’ve got class.”

She huffs. “Fine. I’ve got practice, anyway.”

“Right. I’m gonna sho–”

He pauses halfway to the shower, as though suddenly realising something, and turns back to her.

“What?”

“Wanna join me?”

Ginny gives him a wicked grin and hops off the kitchen table, pulling her t-shirt over her head.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

  
  


“Do you ever miss Ron around here?”, she asks him one night, when they’re standing in his kitchen again, Harry in boxershorts, Ginny in knickers and his _Innuendo _t-shirt. Both with hopelessly ruffled hair.

He flips the grilled cheese sandwich that’s sizzling in the frying pan and grimaces, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Honestly, given how much Hermione was staying over by the end of it, I’m kind of glad I’ve got more than a thin wall between me and them.”

Ginny makes a face. “Gross.”

He grins. “But – yeah, actually, I kind of do. Place hasn’t been quite the same without him.”

Ginny watches his back as he turns back to the stove, watches the soft tuft of black hair at the back of his head, some inexplicable warmth rising in her stomach.

  
  


“Your glasses are funny”, she informs him a few weekends later, gazing at him with one elbow propped up on the back of their metal bench.

(A few weekends later – a few parties later, a few nights spent stumbling through Harry’s front door with entangled limbs and hungry hands, a few more nights learning one another by heart in the darkness of his bedroom, a few more mornings laughing over breakfast together –)

He chuckles. “They’re just … round-ish.”

“Yeah, why’s that? You look like an apothecary from, like, a hundred years ago.”

“My granddad wore ones like these”, he says simply.

Ginny bites her bottom lip. “Sorry.”

His glasses reflect the hazy red lights bouncing off the river, illuminating his green eyes. If she looks closely enough, she can watch city hall change colour in the reflection, party lights in the dark as they while away a night on a bench by the Thames. The London Eye glows red in the night across from them, watching, waiting.

Harry shrugs, dismissing it. “People die. It’s what happens.”

“What happened?”

“He was old. They were already old when they had my dad. I always kind of knew that was going to happen at some point.”

She helpfully raises the bottle tucked between their legs. “Can I interest you in any cheap wine?”

“We should’ve brought glasses”, Harry says, “then –”

“I’ll definitely remember that next time I suggest an impromptu midnight picnic”, Ginny says dryly, and he laughs, like they haven’t been talking about anything heavier than the weather this whole time, a quiet, remarkable thing.

  
  


_ginny [11:08]: running fashionably late but nearly there NEARLY THERE i PROMISE_

_neville [11:09]: haha dw i’m just getting coffee!_

_neville [11:09]: want anything?_

_ginny [11:14]: YES COFFEE PLS._

Ginny shoves her phone into the backpocket of her jeans. The street outside is dotted with a rush of summer rain as she crosses the bustling street and rushes through the door of the bookshop, climbing up the stairs to the first floor.

“Sorry I’m late”, she says breathlessly as they move through the tables towards a quiet spot by a window that overlooks Greenwich. “Harry and I ended up hanging out last night – completely spontaneous – and we talked and lost track of time and –”

Neville listens to all this with mild interest, politely nodding along until Ginny looks up at him.

“What’re you grinning at? What, I can’t spend time with a friend?”

“You’re friends who are doing it”, Neville helpfully points out.

Ginny raises and eyebrow and leans back in her chair. “Yeah. _Friends _with benefits has ‘friends’ in it, love.”

“Because that worked out so well for you before”, Neville says, watching her closely across the small, circular table between them.

Ginny picks up the little sugar packet beside her mug, flicking it against her fingers. The silence stretches, a moment suspended in air, a beat that never drops.

“Shut up”, she mutters.

She knows Neville is watching her and avoids his eyes; suddenly, inexplicably afraid of the honesty she usually finds there.

“Luna home yet?”, he asks finally. When Ginny shakes her head, he says: “Have you guys, like – talked, since …”

Ginny reaches for her coffee and doesn’t reply.

  
  


“Why’d you two _really _break up?”, Harry asks her one night.

Ginny’s legs are dangling off the side of his sofa whilst she takes in his living room ceiling with keen interest. They got inexplicably sidetracked this time around – came bursting through his front door laughing and forgot to stop, their usual intentions quickly fading from memory. As it is, they’re mostly dressed and talking to each other from different rooms as Harry digs through the kitchen for something to eat.

She groans.

“I’ll tell you if you take off your t-shirt”, she says. Mostly to be funny, really.

Harry wanders over into the living room with a very peculiar look on his face, which she takes to mean he’s trying to decipher if she’s taking the piss. He seems to give up on it pretty quickly, though, pulling his _A Night At The Opera _t-shirt over his head and chucking it in her general direction without comment.

Ginny rolls her eyes.

“She wasn’t around a lot, and neither was I – trying to make your way in professional football does that to your private life, who’d have thought – and it turns out I’m sort of shit at this, like, semi-long-distance thing we had going on. We just … missed each other a lot. At some point, more than we were actually together.”

“That sucks”, he says, voice all genuine.

Ginny raises her head off his couch to find he hasn’t moved. She lets his t-shirt fall to the floor and sits up, deciding not to let her thoughts linger on Luna tonight. “You?”

Harry hesitates, but only for a moment.

“I’m not sure any – either of them ever realised I liked them as much as I did. I never really seemed to get the message across.”

His hand is messing up the back of his head, black hair already sticking in every direction, like he’s not quite aware he’s doing it.

“Like, they think I don’t care, they leave, I _do _care – it’s the worst …” He smirks. “T-shirt.”

“Oh, I see how it is”, Ginny says, forgetting to feel sorry for him. She sits up a little straighter and slips her t-shirt over her head, watching as he comes closer and sinks on the sofa across from her.

“Alright”, she says, licking her lips – the faint buzz of drinks from hours ago rushing to her aid. “Uhm. Oh, alright, worst memory.”

“Going straight for the easy ones, I see”, he says dryly, which makes her grin. “Very nosy.”

“I don’t do anything _straight_, first of all”, Ginny says, wiggling an eyebrow at him. “And you can ask me anything back, I’m an open book, you – hold on, wait”, she says suddenly. “You are _not _allowed to bring your dead fucking parents into this. That’s _too _sad.”

“I don’t remember that, do I?”

“Right … okay, what’s your worst memory. then?”

“Hold on”, he says, drumming his fingers on his knee as though deep in thought, “I’m ranking the breakups.”

Ginny snorts with laughter. “Bloody fucking hell.”

“Alright, uhm, the second one. The second one was pretty shit.”

He says it with the same grin that Ginny has on her face every time she talks about Luna. It makes her think that maybe they were easier to rank than he’s letting on, but she decides not to push her luck by prying any further. A question is a question. It’s his move now.

“Spill.”

Harry exhales slowly. “He’d been really weird and quiet for a while, like, the kind of weird and quiet where they tell you everything’s fine and they won’t tell you what’s going on, you know? You can just _tell _that … anyway, one morning, I asked. And he explained he was sorry and that it was over. Came to pick up his things a few days later and left the keys. Hasn’t responded to a text since.”

He shrugs. “I knew _something_ was wrong, I definitely didn’t think I was doing _that _badly, though, y’know?”

“Prick”, Ginny mutters.

Harry nods, grinning faintly. “And a big one, too.”

“Oh my _god._”

He looks at her. “Jeans”, he says quietly.

Ginny hops off his couch and turns to him before she slowly pulls them off, pleased to see that he’s watching her every move.

“C’me here”, he mutters, when she’s standing in front of him in only her underwear, hands on her hips.

Just to mess with him, she takes a few slow steps towards him, stopping out of reach.

“I see”, he says softly, and she chuckles. “Tell me something that’s worth my jeans, then.”

“Worst memory? Alright.”

She looks around his living room, feeling a bit silly standing there in her underwear, but she’s not willing to let him off the hook quite so easily, so she stays put, grinning when she notices how eagerly he’s taking in her body.

“Uhm. I was at a party a few years back. Vaguely flirted with this guy.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, not really aware she’s doing it. “He tried to grope me, basically, so I told him to fuck off, and he threw this massive tantrum in front of everyone there. Calling me a slut and a tease, just, y’know, the whole thing.”

“Dick”, Harry mutters.

He looks like he really means it, too. He does that sometimes: has this disarmingly earnest air about him that always catches her off-guard.

Ginny smirks, holding out a hand with her thumb and index finger nearly touching. “Yeah, but like a teeny, _tiny _one.”

He grins.

“I heard footsteps behind me when I was walking home, and it sounded like they were coming closer, despite the fact that I was, like, walking as fast as you can humanly walk without running, but I honestly didn’t dare look behind me. I kept trying to peer into nearby windows and shit. Anyway, I made it to my front door, slammed it shut behind me, and caught a glance at some girl. I kept an eye on her until she was down the street, just so I’d know she’d made it, too, and it turns out she lived in a building on our own fucking street. But, uhm, yeah, that was fucking terrifying.”

“Shit”, he breathes.

Ginny sticks out her chin.

“Jeans”, she says softly.

“Right.”

He gets up to kick them off, Ginny biting back a grin at his enthusiasm. He doesn’t look away, or blink: his eyes are unabashedly drinking her in, his hands finally wandering up her hips and to the small of her back, her palms sliding up his lean chest.

They fall back on his couch, a heap of warm limbs and mouths crashing into one another: Harry’s head dips to the side, his mouth finding her neck amidst the swirl of red hair, teeth grazing skin. Ginny mutters a breathless _“fuck, _Harry”, her knees on either side of his hips, his hands travelling down her back, pulling her down so she’s straddling him.

His head falls back with a strangled grunt. She can tell he’s getting impatient – she can feel it – and she is, too, so she motions off of him enough to pull down his boxers, but to her surprise, Harry stops her.

“You need to earn these”, he mutters. “So we need a question.”

Ginny has to admit that’s pretty impressive, given the state of him.

“Actually, I’ll ask you one”, she says, biting back quiet moans under his roaming hands.

Harry eyes her knickers that clearly intend to reveal more than they hide. “Yeah, alright.”

She leans in to let her mouth graze his throat, hearing him gasp under her warm breath, hips writhing under her.

“What d’you say we stop messing around?”

He has the nerve to laugh at that.

They don’t make it to the bedroom that time. But much, much later, when they’re curled up under his covers, Ginny turns to look at him, feels him shift next to her. She cannot read his face in the darkness, but she can tell he’s looking back. Has been, for some time.

She rolls onto her side, unsure where her body ends and his begins.

“Were you in love with them?”, she asks softly.

Harry looks at her, silent for a long time. Something shifts behind his eyes.

“You don’t have enough clothes on to warrant that question”, he says quietly, holding her gaze in the dark.

For a moment, she wants to push, but there’s something about his voice that makes the words get lost in her throat.

Ginny pulls her eyes away, but Harry doesn’t. Not for a long time.

  
  


_vi._

  
  


“Have you ever listened to the unplugged version?”, he asks one night, when they’re sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, Ginny’s elbow propped up on his couch next to her. A couch that now holds a rather particular memory – and one that’s going to haunt her for some time, she thinks with a grin.

“Hm?”, she says, pulled out of her reminiscing.

“The song they played at _Magic!”, _Harry says, raising an eyebrow. “You know, when we met. When you selfishly dragged my poor arse on the dancefloor.”

“You _explicitly _agreed to dance with me, git, and – oh, alright, play it already, you’re practically bursting.”

Harry pulls out his phone at the speed of light, earning a giggle from Ginny. He actually has the nerve to shush her as he types the title into the search bar, which only makes her laugh harder.

“What is it with us and this fucking song?”, she mutters, but leans in to listen all the same when the first piano notes sound from his speaker.

They’re halfway through the first listen when Harry looks up at her dazed expression and says: “It’s fucking brilliant, isn’t it?”

“I _fucking _love that song”, Ginny announces loudly.

“I know. _I know.”_

She grins at him, at the glowing look on his face. The song sways to an end and starts playing anew.

“It’s so good. Why is it so good, Harry?”

“Fuck me if I know!”

“I might”, Ginny says easily. “In a bit.”

It’s his turn to laugh: she reaches over to pat his shoulder as he snorts, leaning in automatically.

There’s no time to think, _this is a bad idea, _or, _I don’t care if it is._

He kisses her, lips clumsy and earnest, and it feels like like finally stumbling to the conclusion: for days and months and years after, she’s going to wonder what took them so long, how they ended up here, what a miracle it was that they ever did.

Somewhere in her haziness, she thinks she reaches up to cup his face, feels his fingers in her hair. Harry draws in a shaky breath when she kisses him back, mouth urgent and searching, and when he abruptly pulls back, it is a terrible bereavement: Ginny catches a glimpse of his face with a plummeting feeling in her stomach.

“Ginny –”

“Harry –”

This is the first time she doesn’t sleep over.

“Want me to take you home?”

“It’s all the way across town. You don’t have to. Thank you, but, I’m fine, I promise.”

“Hey, Ginny –”

The song is still playing, she realises, fading and starting anew next door, uninterrupted.

“Harry?”

“Text when you’re home, okay? So I know you made it.”

  
  


_vii. call me friend, but keep me closer (call me back)_

  
  


Outside his door, and at the empty bus stop, and the whole ride back to her place, she can’t figure out why she’s so fucking sad. The London Eye glows red over the river as the bus rumbles over Westminster Bridge, unaware. There are no gods to turn to here: Ginny curls up in her window seat near the back, wondering what she ever expected.

  
  


_viii. i have lost a hero, i have lost a friend_

  
  


When she finally slips through her own front door, she is met with the aching silence that hasn’t let go of: ghosts of laughter and lighter days, another lifetime, long lost, far more haunting than quiet alone.

There’s a slight rustling sound from the bedroom, startling her. Luna’s moonlit silhouette slips into the kitchen.

“Hi”, Ginny says softly, relief and sadness simultaneously washing over her.

“I texted you”, Luna says gently, “I didn’t know where you were.”

Ginny bridges the gap between them and hugs her, resisting the terrible temptation to comb her fingers through Luna’s dirty blonde her like she used to: the effort is so monumental she can’t help wondering why it doesn’t just break her fucking hand already.

“My phone died”, she mutters into Luna’s shoulder. “Hi. Hi, I’m sorry – when did you get back?”

“A few hours ago, I think”, Luna says lightly. “Are you alright? You look tired.”

“I’m fine, I’m just going to go to –”

Ginny realises it with a pang in her chest – they only have the one bed.

“I’ll take the sofa”, she says automatically.

“Don’t be silly”, says Luna, reaching for her hand, easy as breathing. “Come on, you look like you need a good night’s sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

Ginny follows her without protest and curls up on her side of the bed. Sleep won’t release her: she stares at her moonlit ceiling, turning her phone in her hand.

_ginny [03:21]: home_

_harry [03:23]: im glad._

_ginny [03:32]: gnight, harry_

_harry [03:33]: good night, ginny._

She watches dots dance under his message, proof that he is still out there somewhere, on the other end of the city, looking for words. Everything that hasn’t already gone terribly wrong could, if he texts the wrong thing, if she does – the _what ifs _unfold endlessly on either side of the river between them, and yet: she stares at her screen, waiting, and just misses him.

The text never comes, and eventually, he goes offline.

She doesn’t see him again for a fortnight.

  
  


_ix. slip my hand from your hand, leave you dancing with a ghost_

  
  


It seems fitting that this is the end.

_Magic! s_till has that trademark house party spark to it, a small basement, an old friend: squint and it’s five years ago, Harry thinks as he climbs down the metal staircase. Squint and everything is the same. Squint and no one is married and no one ever got burned or hurt or heartbroken, no one ever got scared or stupid and no one knows any better.

He finds Ginny on the dancefloor: and where else would he ever find her? She emerges from the disco lights and smiles at him – squint and everything is the same, squint and no one ever crosses a line, close your eyes and everything, everything is okay – and Harry realises with a sting in his chest that she’s never looked more beautiful.

Maybe he just never paid attention.

He doesn’t remember when they started dancing. They sway on the spot in the middle of the room, eyes fixed relentlessly on one another, hands reaching on their own accord: this is gravity. Harry’s gaze drops to her mouth, but words fail him down here, always seem to fail him when he needs them most. Ginny spots him staring and the corners of her mouth curl under the flashing lights, smile knowing, bitter.

This is not the usual wave waiting to break – this is something far more vulnerable, far more dangerous. The wave builds, and builds, and builds, refusing to release them, every way out, every exit gone.

In the end, they break first. Maybe this is how it was supposed to go, Harry thinks dazedly as he follows her away from the party: they slip to the bathroom like they always do, tongues swirling together, hands roaming under t-shirts, blinding, hazy oblivion.

He sucks on her neck, hard, bruise blushing where his mouth met her skin. Ginny lets out a sharp gasp, her fist clenching in his hair.

That’s the end and the beginning of everything: making out in a bathroom beside a party, breathless, wordless, lost.

  
  


_x._

  
  


_Hey mate Dean texted and told me to let you know you left your phone at Magic! last night – you can go pick it up this afternoon if you want, they kept it safe for u. Hope you check your e-mails on the weekend lol. - Ron_

Harry blinks into the daylight when he pushes _Magic!_’s graffiti-covered door open once more and climbs up the metal staircase back up to the street, slipping his phone into his jacket pocket with a frown. Even taking into consideration last night’s drinks, any memory of putting his phone down anywhere, any opportunity at all to lose it in the first place, seems beyond reach.

Lost in thought, he bumps into a small silhouette as he turns to leave, similarly blinking in the bright sunlight.

“Sorry – oh.”

It’s Ginny. She runs a hand through her long red hair, plainly looking up at him as he is tempted to break eye contact, but finds himself unable to.

Harry stares at her, mouth dry. Last night rushes back to him with stinging clarity: the flashing lights, Ginny disappearing from the dancefloor, that last moment behind the bathroom door, her hand in his hair. The peculiar, ringing silence she left.

“What’re you doing here?”, she asks, pulling him back into the moment.

“I – uh – must’ve left my phone last night. Just came to pick it up.”

She frowns at that.

“Funny. Me, too.”

There is a prolonged silence that stretches between them as cars rumble past them, a doubledecker bus screeching to a halt across the street.

“Did –”

“They played us, didn’t they?”, Ginny says suddenly. “Ron and Hermione?”

Harry combs back through his memory, piecing the night back together. Thinks of his friends, meddling for his own sake.

“Fucking typical”, he mutters.

This leaves them in an entirely different silence. Ginny watches as he finally tugs his eyes away from her, daylight carving shadows into his face. Strange, she thinks for a wild moment, to see him out here. Sometimes she thinks he only exists down there amidst loud music, in all those hours at his flat in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry”, he says, and she knows what he’s talking about. “I was scared.”

Funny, she thinks. They sleep with each other dozens of times, she spends dozens of nights curled up in his sheets, in his _arms, _and in the end it’s a kiss, only a kiss, that drags them out of hiding and into the daylight.

“Why were you scared?”, she asks, like she doesn’t know, like he’s ever been able to hide it. Like she doesn’t see the look in his eyes.

Harry rubs a palm along the back of his head, further messing up his hair. Ginny almost smiles at the familiar gesture, some strange ache tugging at her insides.

“I, uh, wasn’t entirely honest with you”, he says. “You know how I told you I had – an ex-girlfriend, and an ex-boyfriend?”

Ginny nods.

“There was someone else after that. There was another boyfriend.”

She has the inexplicable urge to reach out, to touch him, and curls up her hand inside the pocket of her jeans jacket instead.

“Well, why’s he a such a big secret?”, she asks, daring to grin. “Did he break your heart, too?”

Harry chuckles weakly. “I, uh, think I might have broken his, to be honest. Was a fucking idiot about it, too.”

“Huh. And this whole time, I’d taken you for a serial dumpee. What happened?”

Harry grimaces. “I was – sick of having mine broken. Made a run for it. It wasn’t my proudest moment, exactly. Hermione never let me hear the end of it.”

Ginny grins, if only briefly.

“So, me from two years ago was a fucking coward. Turns out he’s not gotten any better at it.”

It hangs in the summer air between them, the quiet confession that slips out, unnoticed.

There’s something almost apologetic in his eyes when he looks up at her again, like he personally wronged her somehow.

“Ron said you haven’t dated anyone in two years”, Ginny says.

“Well, I haven’t. Not like that. My best friends got fucking _married_, and I turned into this disillusioned, hopeless, permanently single _prick. _I hardly recognise him sometimes. I definitely can’t _stand _him.”

It strikes her, amidst his outburst, as a quietly remarkable thing, that he tells her all this in the first place. And they’re sober, too.

“Luna’s going to New York”, Ginny says suddenly, the secret simply stumbling out after all. “That’s the _tiny_, other reason we broke up.”

“Oh”, he says softly, shoulders falling.

Ginny nods, allowing both of them – perhaps for the first time – to acknowledge this quiet, devastating defeat.

“I asked you if I was a rebound”, Harry says into the silence.

“You weren’t. And you aren’t.”

Ginny remembers shouting jokes at each other over the music down inside _Magic!, _in the thick of their shared Saturday nights, amongst the disco lights and the thumping bass beat and the multicolour glow of the arcade corner. Nights too full for silence, too loud to speak in their normal voices, everything an excuse to scoot a little closer together, until it’s hard to look each other in the eyes.

But the party is over. It’s time to leave the dancefloor, let the last song finish, and face the day.

“How am I different?”, she asks finally.

Harry looks at her, his glasses reflecting the sunlight.

“I like who I am when I’m with you”, he begins.

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“Because you’re great”, he says, and he sounds so stupidly convinced of it that Ginny actually wants to laugh.

She doesn’t.

It’s such a simple thing to say, and yet.

“What’re you doing?”, she asks, when he reaches into his pocket, looking a bit startled at the idea that just crept up on him.

“Look, just – let me do this, okay? Can I just do this?”

Ginny realises he’s holding his phone in one hand, his earphones in the other, offering her both. She takes a slow step towards him and takes one from him: the black cord dangles loosely between them whilst Harry scrolls down a playlist. In the split-second before he presses play, when she realises what he’s doing, she wants to smile, joyful recognition.

“The song that played the night we met”, she says, as soon as the first beat plays.

Harry nods. “The original, though.”

“Of course.”

Ginny looks at him with the song still playing in her ear, and Harry openly looks back, holding her gaze. When she leans in to kiss him, he doesn’t hesitate, kissing her back yet more fiercely.

_Somebody broke me once  
Love was a currency  
A shimmering balance act  
I think that I laughed at that  
‘Til I saw your face and hands,  
Coloured in sun and then  
I think I understand  
Well, I understand_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j42ubxMSQak :)


	3. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you're reading this, I've long left London and found a new home in Leipzig, Germany. I spent the rest of the decade going to uni and romancing my new adult life, in which I buy my own groceries, book my own train tickets, and lock myself out of my beloved first flat (twice). I slipped out of the decade with my best friend slash soulmate slash favourite person by my side, watching the fireworks over my neighbourhood from my kitchen balcony. We, too, hung up a Happy New Year banner and draped a string of fairy lights over the sofa in the hallway. It was a good time.
> 
> Happy new decade! I'll see you around here soon. :)

New Year’s Eve 2019

“I can’t believe this is the last time we’re seeing it”, Ron says, leaning back against the counter as he gazes thoughtfully around his old kitchen.

“You’ve got to help me move, git.”

“Well, it’ll be empty by then, won’t it? Cleared out and boxed up. End of an era and everything.”

“Bit dramatic”, Harry mutters into his drink, biting back a smirk.

Winter snuck up on them so fast they spent it just trying to take it all in: November had slipped into December, unnoticed, the remainders of the decade passing by in half-dark, hazy days, heavy with rain. In a blink, they made it through Christmas, and before they knew it, they were hanging a lopsided _Happy New Year _banner in Harry’s kitchen and draping fairy lights around the doors.

Harry feels himself tugged back ashore from his reminiscing when the sound of his doorbell cuts through the music: seconds later, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender and Ginny all rumble down Harry’s tiny hallway and greet Neville with a spectacular roar of noise.

Harry, Ron and Hermione listen from the kitchen, grinning at each other over the nearby whooping and cheering, warmth tangible and aching between them.

“Magic beans”, Ron says to general surprise, nodding wisely over his drink.

“You finally watched it”, Harry says.

Hermione laughs.

“Your playlist?”, Ron asks after a moment’s silence spent listening to the music sounding through the wall from the living room, in a tone that clearly indicates there’s no need for Harry to answer.

“Hands off, mate”, he says.

“Right, I’m gonna go put on some tunes”, Ron says, meeting Harry’s nasty look with a grin. “This is s’pposed to be a party, mind you.”

“Bite me.”

Ron hops off the kitchen counter with all the grace of a newborn foal and sways dangerously on the spot just as the music sounding down the hallway changes mid-song and starts playing anew.

Ron turns back to a giggling Hermione and a thoroughly unimpressed-looking Harry, eyes wide.

“Am I a wizard?”, he asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

“In a couple drinks, maybe”, Harry tells him, smirking.

Ron and Hermione keep up their easy back-and-forth, laughing over drinks, but Harry isn’t listening anymore. As the first beats play, he thinks he knows exactly who meddled with the music.

“I think that’s my call”, he says, more to himself than to either one of them.

Indeed, when he looks up, Ginny is leaning against the doorframe, smiling warmly at him.

“Nearly midnight”, she says. “Reckon I can convince you to dance somehow?”

“Already have.”

She holds out his hand to him, and Harry takes it without hesitation. Together, they stumble into his living room, spinning on the spot as their song swells.

“What d’you think, are you going to miss the decade?”, she asks over the roaring and chattering of their friends.

“I’m weirdly good, actually”, Harry says, cupping her cheek with his hand. “Might be ready for the next one.”

"I'm so glad."

Ginny wraps her arms around his waist, smiling warmly at him as they spin around his living room in slow motion, clumsy dancing, fairy lights twinkling over their heads.

They don’t hear their friends shout, and they don’t hear the firework starts: in the end, the decade slips away unnoticed while they're dancing elsewhere, and when they look up, the sky over London is already bursting with a spectacle of fireworks, blazing red in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> We've arrived at the end, and, by extension, stumble into a brand-new decade: this fic remains a time capsule of my 2019 drenched in neon lights and music, tucked away in some of my favourite corners of London. (In fact, the only place I can think of that was particularly special to me that didn't make a cameo is my favourite coffeeshop, which is, coincidentally, where I wrote much of this fic. So it goes.)
> 
> I put up the playlist on Spotify and I'll post it to Tumblr soon - this fic is nothing without its soundtrack. If you want to come over and chat, I'm @stuckwith-harry on Tumblr.
> 
> I hope you liked it. Happy new decade! x


End file.
